The effect of podcast tasks on students' engagement and performance in a beginning level Japanese language course

As the growing popularity of podcasting and its application in education become more apparent, there have been a number of studies on the academic use of podcasts. A podcast is a digital file that can be delivered automatically to a device such as a portable media player or a computer via the Internet. However, the majority of research studied the use of instructor-generated podcasts for reviewing materials and supplemental materials. Little research has focused on learner-generated podcasts as a learning tool. Only a few studies investigated how podcast production could contribute to students learning, and these previous studies were not theory-based. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of podcast tasks (PTs) on students’ engagement and performance in a beginning level Japanese course. This study utilized student production of a series of PTs of vocabulary and grammar, as a treatment, and assigned three groups: Early Semester (ES), Late Semester (LS), and Entire Semester (ENT). ES worked on the PTs during the first half of the semester. LS worked on the PTs during the last half of the semester. ENT worked on the PTs for an entire semester. The study investigated differences in students’ engagement and performance based on treatment conditions. Student engagement was defined as motivation and self-regulation in this study. A student engagement survey, adapted items from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), was used to collect data. The students’ performance was assessed by two sets of pre-tests and post-tests for their literacy skills including the comprehension of written Japanese grammar and vocabulary. The study also examined differences in students’ engagement and performance in a high achieving (HA) group and a low achieving (LA) group determined by their Grade Point Average (GPA). Though more than 60% of participants expressed that they enjoyed working on podcasts and would not mind using them as a learning tool, working on PTs did not make a statistically significant difference on students’ engagement or performance. LS had the highest mean motivation and selfregulation score, but that score was probably due to the effect of outliers in this small group. ENT scored the lowest on both the motivation and the self-regulation scales. The result of the Japanese language tests indicated that all groups made statistically significant gains on both post-tests, but the gains on the first test were statistically significantly higher than the gains on the second test. There was no statistical difference among the three groups in their gains. Among HA and LA, the sample cell size was too small to determine if there was any statistically significant difference although HA outperformed LA. Recommendations for future research include replication of the study with a much larger sample size, use of video podcast (vodcast) as a task instead of enhanced podcast and multiple administrations of a students’ engagement survey instead of one time at the end. Recommendations for future practice include application of learner digital media production into students’ learning process and environment

Relationships between Spirituality, Health Self-efficacy and Health Locus of Control in the Elderly

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationships between spirituality, health locus of control and health self-efficacy. A questionnaire survey was administered to elderly people living at home, and 696 valid responses were collected and analyzed. The subjects\u27 mean age was 74.0±5.2 years. Using a causal model to analyze the relationship between spirituality, health locus of control and health self-efficacy, data fitness to the model was evaluated by structural equation modeling. As a result, the validity of a model in which health locus of control affects health self-efficacy and spirituality while health self-efficacy enhances spirituality was confirmed. However, the nature of the relationship between health locus of control and spirituality and health self-efficacy differed according to the characteristics of health locus of control. In addition, there was a positive correlation between health self-efficacy and spirituality regarding "significance and objectives of life", "harmony with others", "belief", and "union with nature". In order to support for the spirituality of the elderly, the author suggests that strategies to improve the health self-efficacy for basic health control behavior are useful

Elastic properties of the Non-Fermi liquid metal CeRu4Sb12Ce Ru_4 Sb_{12} and the Dense Kondo semiconductor CeOs4Sb12Ce Os_4 Sb_{12}

We have investigated the elastic properties of the Ce-based filled skutterudite antimonides CeRu$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ and CeOs$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ by means of ultrasonic measurements. CeRu$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ shows a slight increase around 130 K in the temperature dependence of the elastic constants $C$$_{11}$, ($C$$_{11}$-$C$$_{12}$)/2 and $C$$_{44}$. No apparent softening toward low temperature due to a quadrupolar response of the 4$f$-electronic ground state of the Ce ion was observed at low temperatures. In contrast CeOs$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ shows a pronounced elastic softening toward low temperature in the longitudinal $C$$_{11}$ as a function of temperature ($T$) below about 15 K, while a slight elastic softening was observed in the transverse $C$$_{44}$ below about 1.5 K. Furthermore, CeOs$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ shows a steep decrease around a phase transition temperature of 0.9 K in both $C$$_{11}$ and$C$$_{44}$. The elastic softening observed in $C$$_{11}$ below about 15 K cannot be explained reasonably only by the crystalline electric field effect. It is most likely to be responsible for the coupling between the elastic strain and the quasiparticle band with a small energy gap in the vicinity of Fermi level. The elastic properties and the 4$f$ ground state of Ce ions in CeRu$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ and CeOs$_{4}$Sb$_{12}$ are discussed from the viewpoint of the crystalline electric field effect and the band structure in the vicinity of Fermi level.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, regular pape

Pravastatin restored the infarct size-limiting effect of ischemic preconditioning blunted by hypercholesterolemia in the rabbit model of myocardial infarction

AbstractOBJECTIVESWe tested to find out whether pravastatin restores the infarct size (IS)-limiting effect of ischemic preconditioning (IP) and if it has any effect on the IP-induced activation of adenosine producing enzyme ecto-5′-nucleotidase which plays a key role in the IP-induced cardioprotection.BACKGROUNDThe IS-limiting effect of IP is blunted by hypercholesterolemia. Recently, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are shown to have direct cytoprotective effects.METHODSRabbits were fed with a normal or cholesterol (1%) added diet with or without pravastatin (5 mg/kg/day) treatment. Infarct size was measured after 30 min occlusion and 3 h reperfusion of circumflex coronary artery with or without the IP procedure (5 min occlusion and 10 min reperfusion). Additionally, ecto-5′-nucleotidase activities of ischemic and nonischemic myocardium were measured immediately after IP procedure.RESULTSThis dose of pravastatin did not normalize the increased level of serum cholesterol. The IS-limiting effect of preceding IP (IS reduced from 36.7% to 9.6%, p < 0.001) was abolished by hypercholesterolemia (from 46.1% to 31.3%, p = NS) and restored by pravastatin treatment (from 35.2% to 9.4%, p < 0.001). Pravastatin treatment did not affect IS or the effect of IP under normocholesterolemia. The activation of ecto-5′-nucleotidase presented as the activity ratio of ischemic to nonischemic myocardium (3.1-fold in normocholesterolemia) was blunted by hypercholesterolemia (1.8-fold, p < 0.05) and restored by pravastatin treatment (2.9-fold).CONCLUSIONSPravastatin, at the dose serum cholesterol was not normalized, restored the IS-limiting effect of IP and IP-induced ecto-5′-nucleotidase activation, which were both blunted by hypercholesterolemia. The activation of ecto-5′-nucleotidase may be worth further investigation as a possible mechanism for the hypercholesterolemia-induced retardation and pravastatin-mediated restoration of the cardioprotective effect of IP

Spontaneous Oxygenation of Siloxy-N-silylketenimines to α-Ketoamides

Siloxy-N-silylketenimines generated in situ from Osilyl cyanohydrins were converted to α-ketoamides by brief exposure to air or oxygen. Oxidation under extremely mild conditions can be explained by assuming the intermediacy of a 3-imino-1,2-dioxetane derivative generated via triplet−singlet intersystem crossing after the reaction of siloxy-N-silylketenimines with triplet oxygen.This research was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 25460015 (M.S.), a Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research 15K14929 (K.T.) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the Hoan Sha Foundation (M.S.), the Takeda Science Foundation (M.S.), and the Naito Foundation Natural Science Scholarship (M.S.)